After making a comment comparing establishment Republicans opposed to Obamacare to Nazi propagandist Goebbels, Tennessee Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen went on CIA operative Anderson Cooper’s CNN show to defend himself.

During the interview, Cohen took a swipe at Jesse Ventura and his popular TruTV show. Cohen makes his comment at three minutes in the following video:

Cohen: I have been writing about lies in the political spectrum for two months. There was a show that said that the government was creating concentration camps and planning to have a pandemic against its citizens, this was something on TruTV –

Cooper: Yeah, that’s Jesse Ventura’s ridiculous conspiracy show which is such a joke.

Cohen: But it’s not a joke. I wrote an op-ed about it. That’s the kind of stuff that produces Oklahoma cities, produced two deputy sheriffs being killed in West Memphis.

In other words, according to Cohen and Cooper, investigative journalism – as opposed to the sort of Pentagon script reading CNN produces – and unrestricted exercise of the First Amendment leads inexorably to terrorism and murder.

Since the murder of federal Judge Rolls and wounding of Rep. Giffords in Arizona earlier this month, Democrats and the corporate media have accused Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and others of “heated rhetoric” they absurdly claim leads to the sort of psychotic violence engaged in by Jared Lee Loughner, who is essentially apolitical.

Jesse Ventura, Alex Jones, and Rush Limbaugh have not called for another Oklahoma City terror event. A former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton, however, has said that the only thing that can save Obama’s presidency is a terror attack on the scale of Oklahoma City or 9/11.

“The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership,” said Robert Shapiro. “He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.”

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

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Finally, Rep. Cohen sits on the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. On December 17, during an appearance on the Alex Jones Show, Jesse Ventura confirmed the government and Homeland Security put pressure on Time Warner to pull the show. TruTV is owned by Turner Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Time Warner. Cohen penned an acrimonious op-ed about Ventura’s episode on ten FEMA regions and regional governors. He was involved in the effort to shut down Ventura’s show.

“While the First Amendment serves a vital purpose in our society, the use of airwaves to incite citizens to distrust their government, based on deliberately told falsehoods, is appalling and could lead to people getting hurt,” Cohen wrote for Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper. “Remember that Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City because of a consuming hatred and distrust of the government. Reputable media outlets must take it upon themselves to help expose media charlatans like truTV to protect the American public.”